The Big Discovery [by David, former Presbyterian]

Journeyof ImperfectSaint.blogspot.com ^ | October 4, 2009 | David

[Salvation]

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Big Discovery

        I made some good friends outside my church and found out that they were all Catholics.  Now, I did not know much about Catholicism at the time.  By the way, the Mass did seem somewhat mysterious to me externally.  In fact, what little I had heard from other church members was all negative.  There was a Mrs. J at my church, who had just retired from her missionary post in China.  She was such a kind and endearing soul to all.  One day she got back from visiting someone at a hospital and looked extremely sad and disturbed.  It turned out that when she got to the hospital room, she saw that a Catholic priest was already there with the patient.  Now the question was if the patient would ever get to heaven. 

 

        Nevertheless, my Catholic friends all looked quite normal and happy.  Then could the Catholic Church, the largest church in the the world, be in error?  It so happened that at that time I was also beginning to question my Protestant faith.  The fact that there were numerous different denominations around the world bothered me.  Also, as a Protestant, whether you're a minister or lay person, you are free to marry and divorce any number of times.  It's hard to see that Jesus would be happy with these two facts.  Since I am the kind of person who always likes to find the answer to any question that's important, I decided to look into Catholicism.

 

        I made up my mind not to talk to anyone about my investigation.  I was single then and had a lot of free time to myself.  The local public library housed an excellent collection of books on Catholicism, so I started borrowing books on the subject.  I read every weekend, even taking notes as I read.  The went on for over a year.  I read all those books that viciously attack the Catholic Church too, but somehow they did not affect me much because I sensed that these attacks could not have been prompted by the Holy Spirit.  The books that really helped me were the ones on early Church history.  I could see that the continuity was there and the beliefs and practices of the early Church had been preserved to this day in the Catholic Church.  The only conclusion I could come to was that the Catholic Church was indeed the church Jesus had come and established.  Like Christ himself, the Church, being his body, must be accepted (or rejected) totally, with no middle ground. 

 

        Here's some advice for those who seek the truth.  Your chances of success will greatly improve if, first, you start out with a completely open mind and secondly, go to the source(s) directly to get the facts.  Many who misunderstand the Catholic Church today have already made up their mind that the Church is wrong, thus never bothering to pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to find out what the Church really teaches.  This is being close-minded. 

[BlueDragon]

Think I'll go to sleep myself.

My attempt at humor wasn't that good, anyway. Goodnight.

[count-your-change]

Cheers!

[Iscool]

my point stands.

Your point stands??? Your point is meaningless to born again Christians...

What we look for is God's point...And his point doesn't line up with yours...

[Iscool]

Sorry, not buying your commentary as neither passage ever says that only adults were baptized. Children do not act for themselves. Parents act and speak for them, and that would include having them baptized.

Only believers get baptized in the scriptures...

Act 8:36 And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?
Act 8:37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

There's the criteria for baptism...And no babies are included...

[Iscool]

if Philip told him baptism was for a public testimony, it was a waste of time because THERE WAS NO PUBLIC TO WITNESS IT!

You weren't there so obviously, your conjecture is meaningless...

They were not on an isolated two-track in the wilderness...They were on the main highway to Ethiopia...Could have been people all up and down the highway...

Besides, it would seem that one public witness would be plenty...

[Iscool]

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Do you understand what that means??? Does that sound like getting sprinkled with some water to you???

[metmom]

They were not on an isolated two-track in the wilderness...They were on the main highway to Ethiopia...Could have been people all up and down the highway...

Most normal people would considering doing something out in the open on a major highway where anybody could view it as being *in public*.

It constantly astounds me the lengths to which some will go in their efforts to deny the clear teaching of Scripture.

[metmom]

That’s what you get for believing everything you read on the internet.

[daniel1212]

“Jesus established His Church ( the wheat, the children of the kingdom, and the devil sowed the weeds among the wheat)...”

So your premise is that the wheat (the children of the kingdom) only exist in one particular church under Peter, that alone being the NT church based upon her historical decent and other claims, and that church itself cannot be a mixture of tares and wheat, but that the tares are such as who deny the supremacy and infallibility of the Popes, present and past?

Or do some tares and wheat exist within as well as without Roman Catholicism, including in Protestant churches, or do the latter need to convert to Catholicism to be “wheat”?

And what is the basis for your assurance that the claims of Rome are true?

[daniel1212]

Best to change the subject.

[daniel1212]

While differences in *rites* among those in full communion are not be held as negating salvation, the same is overall true among evangelicals, while rifts can be seen among those in full communion, and substantial doctrinal differences can be seen between Latin Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, though both invoke Tradition and apostolic succession as substantiating their claims to be the one true church.

[Iscool]

It constantly astounds me the lengths to which some will go in their efforts to deny the clear teaching of Scripture.

They can not reference the bible to defend their religion or even find their religion...

Their religion is their so-called church fathers...They don't study the scriptures...They study their church fathers...

Theirs is not the church of the bible...

[count-your-change]

Back in post #679 One L,F,B srote:
“can you find “wheat” in the 2nd century? 3rd? 4th? 5th? 6th? 7th? 8th? 9th? 10th? 11? 12th? 13th? 14th? 15th?

if yes, i’d like you to name some “wheat”

if no, the real wheat looks likes tares to the ungodly.

The premise being, contrary to what Jesus said in the parable, that the two looked alike for some time, the premise being only the Catholic church was the wheat and all others being weeds.

Perhaps that explains the willingness to kill “heretics”.

[count-your-change]

Back in post #679 One L,F,B srote:
“can you find “wheat” in the 2nd century? 3rd? 4th? 5th? 6th? 7th? 8th? 9th? 10th? 11? 12th? 13th? 14th? 15th?
if yes, i’d like you to name some “wheat”

if no, the real wheat looks likes tares to the ungodly.

The premise being, contrary to what Jesus said in the parable, that the two looked alike for some time, the premise being only the Catholic church was the wheat and all others being weeds.

Perhaps that explains the willingness to kill “heretics”.

[count-your-change]

Has anyone noticed what has been happening with SSPX?

[daniel1212]

Has anyone noticed what has been happening with SSPX?

From what i see, the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), which effectively broke with Rome in 1988 in a protest against the liberal changes that followed Vatican2 (and which mainline RCs say were clarifications), has been moving toward " possible reconciliation with Rome" (there that term used again by Catholic source), but which might lead to the group splitting apart. Another main schismatic Catholic group, the sedevacantists, would also be opposed to that.

Then there are those liberals in communion with Rome who,

fear that the reconciliation of the SSPX is a move in a sinister plot to “turn back the clock” to a pre-Vatican II Church.

The author of that sentence is a conciliatory one, who comments,

"Progressives and traditionalists alike have produced tenable yet also mutually exclusive interpretations of liturgical law based on the torrent of verbiage which has issued from the Vatican in the post-Vatican II period."

There are those who argue that the SSPX “should not be accepted back into the Church” because “they still reject Vatican II.” But should they be excommunicated, anathematized and excoriated all in the name of a Council which intentionally avoided excommunications, anathemas and excoriations, even if some SSPX adherents would like to see excommunications, anathemas and excoriations thundered from the Throne of Peter?

More: http://www.chantcafe.com/2012/05/sspx-who-cares.html

[presently no screen name]

Their mind is made up.

Right and so is their final destination! All because they chose to remain in bondage that the Catholic church has them in! Their choice.

Only evil would chose man over GOD!! And the catholic church is evil! The words of their pope - "I'm all yours, Mary." The catholic church is counterfeit and God exposed it through HIS WORD. No wonder why they have their 'own word' - the catechism.

God's church is where God's Word reigns and those who are HIS CHURCH belong to HIM ALONE. God's Word reigns - always has and always will!

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but MY WORDS will never pass away". Matt 24:35

[metmom]

Do they even know if they’re coming or going?

[Jvette]

I don’t know how much clearer I can put this.....

Just as they do now, parents speak for their children, the children are under the care and protection of the parents and therefore, if the parent and his HOUSEHOLD became Christian, there is NOTHING, not one thing in Scripture that says it was only the adults in the household.

Just as now, if the parent is a believer and goes to church, studies the Scripture and prays, so do the children.

No, Scripture says that ALL in Lydia’s household were baptized. Period, no distinction for age, or adulthood or anything.

[Jvette]

****It constantly astounds me the lengths to which some will go in their efforts to deny the clear teaching of Scripture.****

Now that right there is funny!

It is not the Catholics who are saying that baptism is a public testimony of an identity with a certain group, which is NEVER said in Scripture.

It is not the Catholics who are saying that baptism was restricted only to adults, which is NEVER said in Scripture.